POLITICS
Here's one Labour supporter who's not so happy
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
A sense of irony never having been one of Mr Major's strengths, the Prime Minis- ter rather missed a trick last week when John Smith demanded cross-party co-oper- ation over future spam fritter commemora- tive occasions. For the same Mr Smith leads the party which last year launched a campaign of 'all-out non-co-operation' in Parliament in protest at the passing through Parliament in a single day of Bills to raise national insurance contributions and to cut sick pay.
The issue of non-co-operation is now the cause of the kind of 'Labour split' which would once have been guaranteed exposure in the Conservative press. The Labour split is real and deep, and the party leadership has no idea how to disentangle itself. That they want an escape is clear. Morale in the parliamentary party is being hit by claims that, for a favoured, vote-missing few, non- co-operation is less 'all-out' than for others. 'It's classic acting before thinking,' said a Labour whip. 'We just drifted into this without knowing what we wanted to get out of it.'
Labour's erstwhile anger at the ramming through of such important Bills is under- standable. But the response may have exposed how the search for short-term gain outweighs any strategic sense of direction. Most members of the public assume the Opposition opposes all out anyway, so the break-off of parliamentary diplomatic rela- tions has barely impinged upon their per- ception of politics. In other fields, Labour politicians pop up now and then to cause trouble, but rarely to offer any vision which differs much from the Tories', or from the menu of rhetoric offered at the last, lost General Election.
There may be no votes in foreign affairs, for example, but there are votes in leader- ship and in being seen to understand com- plex situations, whether in Bosnia or Brus- sels. Shadow Foreign Secretary Jack Cun- ningham is barely visible, and when he does appear seeks merely to maximise Tory troubles, which is only part of the job.
There have been some successes. John Smith himself has built up an authority which at least allows most people to imag- ine him in Downing Street. Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair has performed a polit- ical miracle (helped by Michael Howard) in establishing an opinion poll lead for Labour on law and order. The Shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown, has taken steps towards a coherent economic policy. The Employment spokesman, John Prescott, at least gives a sense that Labour would be different. Robin Cook remains a formidable operator, but the very best that can be said for most of the rest is that they're no worse than the Tories.
And though themes are being developed on the notions of society, community and constitutional change, few outside the political classes will have noticed. So, as the local and European elections near, there is plenty for new Labour voters to vote against — the Tories — but little sense of what they will be voting for. The once derided polls assure us that if there were a General Election tomorrow, Labour would waltz it. But there won't be a General Elec- tion tomorrow, and, if there were, the result would finally reflect the don't knows, won't votes and those who tell pollsters to get lost.
Before last year's party conference, the central battle in Labour's ranks was between 'modernisers', of which Brown, Blair and the issue of one-member-one- vote became the chief symbols, and 'tradi- tionalists' personified by Prescott. That conference duly buried the traditionalist and moderniser labels. Yet nothing has emerged out of that fusion. The main battle now is about tactics, between those who think Labour should say little about their plans, and those who think Labour should say nothing. Worse, the cautious say, 'Say nothing,' while their opponents say, 'Let's be radical.' On inspection, however, their radical ideas turn out to be the very same ones that have lost successive elections.
Having been burned so badly in 1992 by the Tories' bogus calculations of the cost of their opponents' pledges, Labour's caution is understandable. But it has gone too far when John Smith's deputy, Margaret Beck- ett, asked if a Labour government will spend more on the National Health Ser- vice, says, 'We'll have to look at the posi- tion.' That should be the answer to the question: 'How much?' The answer to the first question is surely yes. There are few, if any, circumstances I could envisage that would lead me not to vote Labour, but if I thought Labour wouldn't spend more on health and schools, or that they wouldn't adopt a more interventionist approach to the economy, or that they wouldn't raise my taxes, then I'd have to think a bit. This is not an 'irresponsible shopping list'. It is the absolute minimum, surely, that the pub- lic will expect of Labour.
Instead an obsessive caution is leading to an inertia which prevents genuinely fresh thinking from emerging, while the polls tend only to compound this complacency. Yet John Smith was foremost, in the early days of his leadership, in signalling that Labour must change substantially to gain the electorate's trust. Now, when not refer- ring questioners to 'the position we will inherit', shadow ministers hide behind the Commission on Social Justice set up by Smith to examine tax and benefits. It is pos- sible that the Commission may come up with the Labour equivalent of Mrs Thatch- er's pre-1979 council house sales policy. Then again, it may not. It has produced some well-argued and worthy reports, but as yet little to set the political juices flowing.
Labour are so used to enjoying the Tories' troubles that they have stopped thinking about their own. The Govern- ment's incompetence is a huge help but not, on its own, enough. The public are tired not just of the Government, but of politicians generally, and Labour are not exempt. If the current line is held to the election, the ducking and diving of Labour MPs will become as big a turn-off as the deceit and dissembling of Conservative ministers.
When he was Shadow Chancellor, John Smith was convinced that Oppositions didn't win elections, Governments lost them. He may be right. But the Govern- ment he faces at the next election may bear little resemblance — leader, policies, Cabi- net, economy, polls et al — to the one he faces now. The Labour Party, on the other hand, may look suspiciously like the one that lost the last election, committed to fairness, justice and equality and unable to convince the public that it can deliver any of the above.
Alastair Campbell is assistant editor (politics) of Today.
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